Appeal No. 2001-0118
Application No. 09/013,927
inside of a sputter chamber at a pressure between 20 and 100
milliTorr and applying a high frequency electric power to a
target provided inside the sputter chamber to release sputter
particles from the target, wherein the sputter particles are
ionized only by the high frequency electric power applied to
the target in a plasma formed by the sputter discharge.
Further details of this appealed subject matter are set forth
in representative independent claim 2 which reads as follows:
2. An ionizing sputtering method, comprising the steps
of:
maintaining an inside of a sputter chamber at a pressure
between 20 and 100 mTorr;
applying a high frequency electric power to a target
provided inside the sputter chamber so as to create a sputter
discharge and sputter said target to release sputter particles
from the target, wherein the sputter particles are ionized
only by the high frequency electric power applied to the
target in a plasma formed by the sputter discharge; and
making the sputter particles released from the target
arrive at a substrate so as to build up a thin film on a
surface of the substrate;
wherein a power area density of the high frequency
electric power divided by a surface area of the target being
sputtered is a least 5 W/cm . 2
The references set forth below are relied upon by the
examiner as evidence of obviousness:
2
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